John Robison (physicist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Robison (February 4, 1739 – January 30, 1805) was a Scottish physicist and inventor. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
He was born in Boghall, Stirlingshire, Scotland and attended Glasgow Grammar School and the University of Glasgow. After a brief stay in London in 1758 Robison accompanied Thomas Wolfe on his expedition to Quebec. His mathematical skills were employed in navigation and surveying. Returning to England in 1762, he joined the Board of Longitude — a team of scientists who tested John Harrison’s marine chronometer on a voyage to Jamaica.
On his return he settled in Glasgow engaging in the practical science of James Watt and Joseph Black in opposition to the systematic continental European chemistry of Antoine Lavoisier and its adherents such as Joseph Priestly. In 1766 he succeeded Black as Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow.
In 1770 he travelled with Admiral Charles Knowles to Saint Petersburg where he taught mathematics to the cadets at the Naval Academy. Robison returned to Scotland in 1773 and took up the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He lectured on mechanics, hydrostatics, astronomy, optics, electricity and magnetism. His conception of mechanical philosophy’ became influential in nineteenth-century British physics. His name appears in the 1776 Minute Book of The Poker Club, a crucible of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he became General Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in 1797 his articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannica gave a good account of the scientific, mathematical and technological knowledge of the day. He also prepared for publication, in 1799, the chemical lectures of his friend and mentor, Joseph Black.
Robison worked with James Watt on an early steam car. This project came to nothing and has no direct connection to Watt's later improvement of the Newcomen steam engine. He along with Joseph Black and others gave evidence about Watt's originality and their own lack of connection to his key idea of the Separate Condenser.
Robison did however invent the siren, though it was Charles Cagniard de la Tour who named it after producing an improved model.
Towards the end of his life, he became an enthusiastic conspiracy theorist, publishing Proofs of a Conspiracy ... in 1797, alleging clandestine intrigue by the Illuminati and Freemasons. (The work's full title was Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and Reading Societies.) Robison and Abbé Barruél independently developed similar views that the Illuminati had infiltrated Continental Freemasonry, leading to the excesses of the French Revolution. Modern conspiracy theorists believe that this was the template for the subversion of otherwise benign organizations by radical groups through the 19th and 20th centuries.
